Winter's Breath
by honeybee494
Summary: Aurora has lived a long life, raising her children and seeing her grandchildren. Now she wishes to know, what's it like to fly? (MAJOR character death)


**One Shot**

**Word count: 2593**

**Disclaimer: Don't own anything recognisable**

"She's asking to see you."

Maleficent closed her eyes and let out a long breath through her nose. When she finally found the will to move, the fairy turned to face her companion; Diaval looked rather ragged, more so than usual, his black hair was ruffled and the feathers that lingered after his transformations were stuck up at odd angles, dark smudges beneath even darker eyes, his jacket was slung over one arm and his tunic was rumpled and creased.

The fairy shook her head and turned away again.

"Maleficent." His voice was hoarse and she knew that his whole body would have slumped at her non-verbal reply, "Please, she wants to see you."

"I can't, Diaval." She replied, her eyes closed and she pictured Aurora as she had last saw her; face wrinkled and her back bent slightly, her once golden hair was grey and her face and hands were wrinkled, but her eyes had not aged a day and they still sparkled.

That had been some time ago.

Diaval went and saw Aurora every day, often spending days at a time at her side; when Maleficent questioned him, he gave her an answer that hurt far more than she let show.

So it was getting worse, Maleficent squeezed her eyes tighter, unconsciously curling her wings around her shoulders. Her eyes opened when she felt two hands take her own, "You're not going to come are you?"

Maleficent bit her lip and raised her gaze the tired but intent one of her best friend, "I can't, Diaval. I can't stand by her side and watch her slip through my fingers. I can't be there and know I can do nothing."

He sighed and let go of her hands to run one of his own through his hair, messing it even further; she knew that when in the form of a raven all of his feather would be ruffled and slightly skewed. "You should see her." He muttered shifting fluidly into the form of a bird and taking flight towards the kingdom.

Guilt stirred uneasily in her stomach, she knew that Diaval was right, she should go to the castle and see her Beastie but Maleficent couldn't bring herself to face the fact that soon Aurora would be gone.

XXXXXX

Diaval landed on the balcony and shifted, moving to take up space beside his hatchling just as a young child came through the door. The raven let a soft, comforting smile slip onto his face, "You should be in bed, Alys."

"I wanted to see Nana." The little looked at him with wide brown eyes, whispering carefully.

Diaval simply settled himself into the chair at Aurora's bedside, crooked smile lingering on his lips. After a half-second of hesitation the little girl climbed into his lap and curled against his chest with her blanket. "Why is Nana sick, Da?"

"Nana is old, hatchling. Not sick." He murmured, rubbing her back gently. The sky was already dark when he arrived yet it had gotten even darker since then, and that was not long ago.

Alys yawned quietly and curled further into his body. Alys was the daughter of Aurora's son and the King, Brenner.

Philip and Aurora had ended up having three children, the oldest being Evelyn, next Lorelle and finally Brenner. Evelyn had married a Prince from another kingdom, he was nice enough but he could be rather stiff, they had four children; Colton, Malin, Oakley and Magge. Lorelle had recently married a visiting council member who had decided to become part of the King's court and finally Brenner had married a young woman and now had two children; Hunter and Alys.

This was his family, one that he and Maleficent had raised, if not for her they would never have had the chance to care for Aurora. The door opened a peak and The King's head appeared round the door, "How is she?"

"Much the same." Diaval turned his eyes to the sleeping girl in his arms and quietly stood to pass her to him. The King's face turned incredulous and he shook his head carefully shifting her in his arms.

"Thank you, Diaval." He murmured.

The raven nodded to him with a smile and returned to his previous post at his hatchling's bedside. A few moments after the door was shut, Aurora stirred.

"Father?" Her voice was hoarse and brittle as she looked at Diaval.

The raven was out of his seat and perched carefully on the bed beside her in an instant, "Right here, Aurora."

She swallowed as she studied his face, "I love you, pretty bird."

"I love you too." He smiled holding her small hand in his much larger one.

"You need to tell godmother that I love her. I can't tell her because she's not here."

"Well you will be able to tell her when she arrives."

"She's not coming, Father." Her voice stern when she said this, "I know she can't bear the castle and I know she cannot bear seeing me like this without being able to help me. So you need to tell her I love her because I won't be able to."

"Aurora." Diaval's voice broke.

"Will you take my body to the Moors?" Aurora's eyes closed. "I want to be there, among my fair folk and tall trees."

"Aurora you're not-" Diaval's voice broke.

"I am." She cut across him, her eyes opened and she smiled, "In the Moors, in that clearing we found, the one with all the wild flowers, you remember?"

A tear slipped from Diaval's eye as he nodded, "I remember." He whispered.

"Take me there, and bury me beneath the old oak tree, the one that we used to climb, high up into the branches." Her wrinkled face turned wistful, "Oh when the breeze blew through my hair and I closed my eyes it was like I was flying. I always wanted fly with you and Godmother, soar so high into the clouds that I couldn't see the ground anymore. Will you tell me what it is like to fly?"

Diaval bit back a sob and let another tear roll down his cheek he nodded, "When you fly it is… it is like you're free. You feel like there is nothing to hold you back, nothing that can keep you chained to this earth, it's just you and the clouds and the winds. Oh Aurora, you can fly so high and stop seeing the ground and just be surrounded by the winds and this silence, up there you can think." Diaval bit his lip and closed his eyes as more tears fell, letting out a ragged breath he continued, "Up there you realise just how tiny you are compared to the grand scheme of everything in the world."

"It sounds wonderful." Aurora's voice is weak.

"What I've said doesn't do it justice." Diaval watched Aurora's face, her eyes were closed and she was smiling, her fingers laced gently with his.

"Perhaps now I will get to fly." Her voice trails off and her hand becomes slack in his.

Diaval sobs silently and closes his eyes, mouthing the word 'no' repeatedly as his head rests against the mattress.

When Evelyn enters the room in the morning and finds Diaval still crying softly to himself she wails; without thinking the raven is across the room and catching his granddaughter as she collapses. Both now kneeling on the floor he rocks her back and forth as she cries, a fresh wave of tears spilling from his eyes and into her hair.

News of beloved Aurora's passing spreads quickly and the castle goes into mourning. Diaval does what he can, in his grief, to comfort his family. The family band together in one room to share their grief.

Diaval had soon felt trapped, he needed to leave. And so he fled to the kitchens and snagged a bottle of something, drinking it as he left the castle. He had no idea what it was just that it burned going down and gave himself something else to focus on.

It was going to have to be him to break the news to Maleficent.

Long strides took him down the stone path from the castle, out onto the dirt pathway of the villages, onto the frosty, dirt track past the farms and finally into the long grass on his way to the Moors. By now he was stumbling, tripping over his own feet, dark hair was falling in front of his eyes. He was cold.

Diaval managed to stumble into the Moors, hanging onto trees in an effort to keep himself upright as he walked, finally he gave up and dropped onto his haunches head bowed as he thought more about Aurora. He took another swig from the bottle.

"Diaval?"

XXXXXX

Maleficent had been trying to work up the nerve to fly to the castle when Balthazar had informed her that somebody had stumbled into their home.

Immediately she had gone to investigate but she felt shock overwhelm her at the person who was kneeling in to snow. "Diaval?" She asked in concern, wings fluttering.

He mumbled something, head still drooped forward, he took a drink from a bottle clasped in his pale fingers.

"Do stop mumbling." She snapped, worry making her tone harsher than she had meant.

Diaval tipped his head up to look her in the eyes, his own glittering with tears, "I said…..She loves you."

"I know that." Maleficent edged closer, her eyebrow steadily creeping upwards.

"But you don't understand do you?" He growled, lurching to his feet.

Maleficent unconsciously took a step back, "What do you mean I don't understand." An edge of hysteria appearing in her voice, he couldn't mean what she thought he did, he just _couldn't_.

"She _gone_." Diaval's voice broke and he swallowed some more from the bottle, grimacing as it went down. With renewed strength he snarled angrily, "Aurora is _dead_, Maleficent!"

"No. No she can't." The fairy shook her head in refusal.

"She _is_." Diaval face was twisted in rage as tears began to streak down his cheeks, "I was by her side, Maleficent. I sat there as she told me that the time had come and asked me to tell you she loved you. She asked me to bring her here to the Moors to be buried. Asked me to tell her what flying is like!"

"I should have been there."

"Yes you should have been!" He shouted. "I shouldn't have had to sit there and listen as she said that you weren't coming! You should have been by her side this whole time?"

"Diaval I-"

"WHERE WERE YOU?" He screamed at her.

"D-"

"I'll tell you where you were, you were _here_ hiding from the inevitable! Did you think that maybe if you didn't go and see her that she would live? Is that what you thought Maleficent?"

"No." She whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek.

Diaval choked on a half-sob half-bitter-laugh, "I am ashamed to call you my best friend." He growled before stumbling away.

Maleficent watched him go with wide tear filled eyes, before she swallowed them back, she was not going to cry over him. She could mourn Aurora later after she had made the necessary preparations for her funeral.

XXXXXX

A few days later and there were people gathered at the castle as the King led a coffin from the castle doors to a decorated cart.

People lined the streets to throw flowers and mourn their beloved Aurora's passing.

The horse-drawn cart was followed by her family, all of them crying already. Upon reaching the Moors they were met by Diaval; he, King Brenner, Evelyn's husband Chilton and Lorelle's husband Johnson carried the coffin through the trees and too the meadow.

Maleficent was there surrounded by the fair folk of the Moors and watched as her beastie was carried towards her in a box.

The coffin was set down on a long slab of stone and the family gathered to one side.

Few people had things to say as they were too distraught to do anything other than cry. Then Maleficent stood and rested her hand on the smooth wood, "I was meant to hate you; that was why I cursed you. But many years I spent caring for you from afar and I grew to care just the tiniest amount, and then we met face to face and the amount grew bigger. I tried to revoke my curse and it didn't work and we faced the consequences of that. I willingly walked into a death trap with that bumbling idiot you ended up marrying, hoping beyond hope that his kiss would work, but it didn't. And when I kissed you I realised that not all True Love is romantic."

The fairy paused and looked up her eyes meeting Diaval's before she looked away, "A great many years have passed since those days and there is nothing I wouldn't do to turn back time and be at your side where I should have been, where Diaval was, I should have been there too and beastie I am _so _sorry."

Maleficent leaned over and pressed a kiss to the wood before stepping back. Tendrils of magic snaked from her fingers to grow long strong vines that wound from beneath the stone and around to coffin, safely encasing it in magic and nature and all things Aurora had adored.

Everybody paid their own respects in their own ways before disappearing away into the trees, and the humans back to their kingdom after saying farewell to Diaval and Maleficent.

XXXXXX

Weeks passed, Diaval was slowly piecing his life back together, he had apologised to Maleficent and then turned to looking after Aurora's grandchildren.

The great Protector of the Moors herself had taken to keeping busy so that she did not have time for grief; slowly day by day it was getting harder to cope and it showed. Her eyes dulled in colour as did her hair, her wings lost their shine and began to look more haggard.

She felt hollow and stretched too thin all at once, she snapped angrily at completely innocent beings and ignored Diaval entirely. Maleficent shut herself away emotionally, stewing internally in her guilt and her grief mingled with the hurt she still felt from Diaval's accusations.

Right now she was trying to heal a broken branch from a tree, something that should have been easy but it just wasn't working. Feeling eyes on her, Maleficent looked up and found Diaval in raven form watching her from the branch above her head.

She ignored him and began to summon her magic to the trees once more, her hands were shaking, Diaval jumped from the tree, she tried calling for her magic again. The more frantically she tried the more her hands shook and she began to lose control. Tears blurred her eyes and her breathing sped up.

Cool hands clasped her wrists gently and turned her, she was pressed up against a warm chest and Diaval's smooth voice whispered against her hair, "Let go."

So she did.

Maleficent screamed and beat her fists against Diaval's chest; he did not flinch or move away or ask her to stop just listened as she sobbed wretchedly and tear coursed never ending down her cheeks. Eventually she simply just fell into arms that curled around her and screamed into his shoulder, reality coming crashing down around her.

Aurora was dead, and she would never come back.

Her Beastie was _gone_.

**Read and Review x**


End file.
